about jped

For 18 years I served as an officer in the Royal Navy. I joined up as an Instructor Officer (teacher). There was a long tradition of mathematics, science and technology graduates who served in this way; even in Nelson’s day big ships might carry a school master who would teach the mathematics required for celestial navigation. This is no mean feat; we don’t teach spherical trigonometry in school now but our best current mathematics pupils would have found something mathematically challenging at sea in the 18th century Navy.

More recently, since sea going aviation and submarines, Instructor Officers took on work in Meteorology and Oceanography. This is the path I took. In the last 20 years the explosion in communication and information technology have rendered many of our academic and scientific skills obsolete at sea. The Navy has combine skills sets in its various officer professions and the career I followed is no longer possible.

Whilst I now teach mathematics in school (as well as some other administration work) I retain an interest in meteorology and have enjoyed following the development of web based platforms that now communicate meteorological data. I am struck by the visual appeal of some of this data and relish the way science, mathematics and nature come together in this subject area. As a commissioned officer in the armed services, my interests extend beyond the science into the geopolitical affairs that result from climate and weather.